Water, roads, and rage

Residents of Manchester Central appear split over whether Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) incumbent Rhoda Moy Crawford deserves a second term as the clock ticks toward the general election expected by September.

She is facing a challenge from Donovan Mitchell, People’s National Party (PNP) councillor for Royal Flat and current mayor of Mandeville – though dissatisfaction trails him, too.

With four electoral divisions, the battleground seat may come down to Bellefield, a swing area with a history of tipping the scales.

“Every MP can do more,” Melbourne Brown reasoned just after 8 a.m. last Wednesday in the cool, mistless calm of Banana Ground in the Bellefield Division, as he wiped the counter to open his small roadside shop.

The 51-year-old, who wears several hats to stay afloat in the rugged rural stretch near the northern Clarendon border, argued that while Crawford is not the perfect representative, he has seen enough to keep him interested.

“She has promised me one thing, which is water ... , She never must do it in her first [term], but that is [the] main thing weh mi woulda want fi see. All the other MPs them seh it’s too expensive to come up here. But me say, for a politician, nutten nuh too expensive, because when they want things for themselves, it’s not expensive,” said the farmer and shop operator.

While his community still lacks piped water, Brown credits Crawford for road repairs and efforts to address water supply and drainage issues in Mandeville.

“If she not do nothing [else], she fix that problem in Mandeville,” he said.

On roads, he noted some of the thoroughfares are “patchy, … but, at least, she try.”

Ronald Carter, 66, another farmer who had just stepped into the shop before heading to his farm in the hills, held a different view.

His judgment is based on the provision of piped water, a perennial concern, especially in the hilly terrain that produced Olympic sprint champion Elaine Thompson-Herah.

‘Mi cyaan drink vote’

“Every MP come and promise it,” Carter said. “From Mr Junor to Bunting to now, same story. Mi vote every election, but mi cyaan drink vote.”

How do they access water?

“Who can buy, buy; and who can, catch a little water up the reservoir,” Carter said. “Me nuh see nuh performance,” he concluded of Crawford, adding that though his family supports the PNP, he would “switch” if water access is improved.

As Carter listed his family’s support for the PNP, Brown advised him: “Never you be too die-hearted, you’ll never see the truth. You have be open-minded.”

Since its creation in 1967, Manchester Central has been a PNP stronghold, with 10 wins out of 13 elections. Crawford’s 2020 victory over three-term MP Peter Bunting was historic, securing the JLP’s first contested win since 1980. She won with 8,140 votes to Bunting’s 6,989.

In her reflection, Crawford said “the clear strategy” was “to compromise” the PNP’s base in the bastion of Bellefield, where disaffection among Comrades in the district of Ginger Hall foretold Bunting’s defeat.

“We spent time with the people,” she said.

The strategy was likely shaped by the 2011 election, in which a majority of 963 votes in Bellefield was key to Bunting overhauling the lead that his challenger, Danville Walker, had built up from winning the other three divisions. Both polled more than 10,000 votes, with Bunting winning by 509 votes.

After almost five years, the verdict is still out on whether Crawford stuck to her strategy as voter opinions are divided.

“She’s doing a great job,” declared Omar McKenzie, a 40-year-old farmer in Ginger Hall who has been cultivating yams, tomatoes, and cabbage for 15 years. “She really comes in sometimes and checks up on us ... . She gives us light. Sometimes she does patching and fixes the road.”

McKenzie, who was transporting more than 200 bamboo poles to his yam farm, plans to vote for Crawford again.

“Yeah, man! Mi a vote. She has my support,” he added, contrasting her efforts with Mitchell’s: “With him now, we get more promise more than seeing him.”

Yet for others, key infrastructure gaps persist.

Shaded under a grapefruit tree along a narrow stretch of road in Ginger Hall, 72-year-old Albert Reid offered a blistering assessment of Crawford’s tenure.

“I don’t see this MP performing, basically,” said the veteran farmer and businessman with decades of experience in coffee, pimento, and trucking.

His chief complaint? The roads.

“If this area road nuh fixed like this, … which area then?” he asked. “I can’t be pleased.”

Water access is another sore point. According to Reid, residents rely heavily on rainwater harvesting and inconsistent deliveries from the municipal corporation.

Private purchase

“When the MP send in water… they sending it to tanks, where you have to go with container,” he said, lamenting that private purchase was often the only reliable option.

Reid said Crawford’s visits to Ginger Hall have not been much and that would not be significant if his wishes were being met.

Over in Trowers, a small settlement in the Knockpatrick Division, Solomon Scille, 85, and his wife, Elizabeth, 71, offered a weathered but reflective view from their verandah.

“She fixed some of the roads in Trowers,” Elizabeth acknowledged, referring to Crawford’s work.

But on whether the MP deserves another term, Elizabeth was more circumspect. “Me nah say she deserve it and me nah say she don’t; wah fi yuh, just a fi yuh; no one can tek it from you.”

Solomon was more blunt.

“We live in yah so and storm blow – Beryl blow in July – and we nuh see no one come look pon wi [to see] if we dead or if we living. Up till this blessed moment. If a wi MP and him family did down deh, him supposed to come come look pon wi and if a him responsible for this community. Nutten; nutten. No help, nutten.”

Elizabeth added, “Me nah say she nuh do other help; not because me nuh get.”

Do they plan to vote?

“I do not believe so,” Elizabeth offered quietly.

Solomon, who relocated to Trowers in 2004 after flooding in Harmon’s Valley, expressed similar discontent with Mitchell, who is also the mayor of Mandeville.

“Oh, dat deh mayor deh? Cho. I don’t see nuh work weh dat deh mayor deh really [do].”

Mentally ill persons

They also raised concerns about mentally ill persons wandering in the parish capital.

“When Cecil Charlton time, no mad people nuh inna Mandeville. [Him] tek care of the place,” Solomon said, referring to a former mayor.

In Royal Flat, the division represented by Mitchell, John Rowe, a 52-year-old shop and farm assistant with a lilting British accent, said he hasn’t voted in decades and that it was not likely to change.

“Mi used to vote,” he said, “but nothing happen. Why mi fi bother?”

His disappointment appears to run deeper than potholes or water shortages. It’s a moral injury.

“Corruption tek over,” he told The Sunday Gleaner. “And nobody going a prison. Not a soul.”

Sitting at a roadside stall with his phone perched on a piece of yam, he was watching a YouTube video of Burkina Faso’s leader Ibrahim Traore, whose leadership of the former French colony has generated widespread support in Global South countries.

“Better me vote for Traore,” he declared. “Since him run out the French dem, him put up – weh you call it? – flour mill, gold plant, cut road, him do this, him do that. Look at Jamaica and look at all of the things that Jamaica can produce. Yeah? That comes from the ground and off a the tree – and Jamaica don’t have a proper agro-processing position inna the world?”

He acknowledged road works in sections of the constituency, but noted that “highways look nice, but what happen to the byways? We live there, too.”

Heated exchange

In Broadleaf, also in the Royal Flat Division, The Sunday Gleaner’s questions about the performance of Crawford and the prospects of Mitchell sparked a heated exchange. It started after Juliet Smikle, an avowed Comrade, declared that she is not familiar with Crawford.

“I don’t know her. ‘Cause me a PNP and she a Labourite, she nuh waah know me. I don’t know her,” she said, perched on block at a shop construction site, under an ackee tree tempering the wrath of the midday sun.

Another woman, Nickeisha Fenley, chimed in with support.

“When she did even win, she neva even come gi wi a wave, applause or any gratitude. We nuh know Rhoda. We [only] see har pon TV.”

But they were challenged by Asley ‘Ragga’ Mullings, who overheard the conversation while he laid blocks.

“Yuh nuh know Rhoda?” he asked rhetorically, pointing out that residents of Broadleaf were included in recent works to repair the community clinic.

“But mi never see har,” the women hit back, with Kenley asking him, “if wi nuh know Rhoda, yuh a go beat di two a wi?”

Smikle, 56, then added: “First of all, Rhoda never gi nuh baddi inna di community none a di work. Rhoda carry people come yah come duh di wuk.”

Mullings rejected that, saying, “nutten nuh guh so,” before listing two names.

The argument grew heated as Mullings stepped away from the blocks, dismissing their claims as he advanced closer, even reminding them about Crawford’s visit to a playing field.

Kenley said she recalled that visit, though the time wasn’t clear, but said the MP spent “three minutes”, suggesting it was not enough time to meet residents.

“Nutten nuh go suh,” Mullings shot back. “Memba seh a me yuh a talk to.”

But Kenley would not relent, and neither would the women, with Smikle getting up from a block to press her point. By this time, the exchange descended into a trading of expletives, with Mullings telling them “to defend the community”, to which Smikle answered “but a di community we a talk bout”.

Mullings, 69, then asked what Councillor Mitchell had done for the division.

“Look how the place look,” he said. “Weh him duh down yah?”

“Wah Rhoda do?”Smikle shot back, returning to the clinic work argument and telling Mullings, “Tru Rhoda Labourite and yuh a Labourite? Yuh not even get nuh work roun deh.”

“Me never guh look nuh work!” he lobbed back at Smikle who told him, “Well, shet yuh mout! Gweh!”

Mullings, noted that one of his disappointments with Councillor Mitchell is the length of time it has taken to finalise a road in Terra Town.

In March, a weeping Crawford told a JLP political meeting that her tears were not of weakness but of resilience after going through a “tough” few years as a political representative, marked by health challenges and the death of her mom. She has not responded to a Sunday Gleaner request for an interview.

editorial@gleanerjm.com